Vietnam, Indonesia Coffee Premiums Seen Firm by Volcafe

June 29 (Bloomberg) -- Buyers of coffee from top robusta
grower Vietnam and third-ranking Indonesia are paying higher
premiums for beans because of limited availability, according to
Volcafe, the coffee unit of ED&F Man Holdings Ltd.

Vietnamese beans for July and August shipment were at a
premium of $60 a metric ton to the price on the NYSE Liffe
exchange in London, data from the Winterthur, Switzerland-based
trader show. That’s unchanged from last week and higher than the
$40 a ton two weeks earlier, according to the data.

Indonesian coffee for shipment in the same period was at a
premium of $70 a ton to the exchange price, unchanged from the
previous two weeks, according to Volcafe. The premium was $10 a
ton in the week ended June 8, data from the trader showed.

Robusta coffee is “still on the shopping list” for
industry buyers, the trader said in a weekly report to clients
e-mailed today. “The opportunity to buy raw coffee remains
scarce and highly expensive,” in Vietnam, Volcafe added.

In Indonesia, the local industry is buying and building
stockpiles to bridge the end of the 2012-13 crop there and the
start of the Vietnamese season, it said. Bean arrivals at ports
there were about 10,000 tons this week, Volcafe added.

The 2012-13 crop in Vietnam is unlikely to match that of
2011-12, Volcafe said in the report, citing its most recent crop
survey and without providing a new estimate.

The 2012-13 season started in April in Indonesia and will
begin in October in Vietnam. Vietnam’s production will be 24
million bags in 2011-12, the trader estimated last month. At the
time, it said Vietnam would produce 22 million bags for 2012-13.